The Craft of Poetry

One of the few journals that has accepted my work has recently gotten a new editor. This editor has stated that there will be less attention to 'free association' writing, and more to the 'craft of poetry'.
Phew!
I know what that means.
It means he's not likely to publish me in future issues.
Not that my poems are 'free assocation'. They aren't. I work reasonably hard on each and every one, giving great thought to the nuance and meaning behind each and every word and image, after the initial inspiration that burst forth. There is a clear form, even if it is not an established form.
There is an addiction to phony formalism in poetry that sickens the soul. An adhesion to a formalism that does nothing to further meaning or expression.
It's interesting that I reject the standard forms of poetry, because I don't reject the standard forms of song - the 12 bar blues, the 32 bar song form, the 3 chord country songs. It seems like a contradiction, but it isn't really - I expect more from poetry, or something different. Songs can almost be poetry, but mostly they are just songs. I don't mean that in a demeaning way, because they are tied to music - the greatest art of all. Poetry is something else however, and if it is forced into the confines of an accepted form that will only be recognized as such if coming from a practitioner of the 'craft of poetry' it is as dead as snakeshit.

Is there craft in this poem?

Art

One must believe that there are modes of expression

that pull back the curtains

that cover the core of life.


I think so.

Advice

What is it with people and their penchant to hand out advice? Who asked for it? Do the people giving advice have any expertise to back up the advice that they give?
Generally, the answer is no. That includes the people who have 'credentials' and are supposed to know how to give advice.
The problem is that advice is not what is needed, and there are very very few who are in a position to hand out advice in a credible manner. The advice givers seldom really have the street cred that lends real meaning to their pronouncements. They are operating from a menu, a recipe book.
For example, a useful review of any of my writing would not say:
'You should do this...'
'You should do that...'
Rather say:
'The book bored me.'
'I got bogged down around chaper 13.'
'I found too many adjectives.'
or,
'I laughed my ass off.'
'That scene at the dock was cool.'
'The bit about meeting the woman at the bar knocked my dick in the dirt.'

That's enough for me. It'a all I ask for.
Do not give advice. You do not know what you are talking about.
Reactions work for me.

Big Projects

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted anything on this wildly popular blog. I have the twinge of an urge to do so now after watching a Frontline show on a proposal for an open pit copper/gold mine in Alaska. The CEO of the mining consortium lamented about the obstacles to executing 'big projects' brought on by people with environmental priorities. There's a stink of backroom scheming and dark alley salivating over profits behind these kind of proposals, however rational and considered are the concerns about 'coexisting' or 'making it work for all concerned'.

But that's not what I'm on about.

There is a subset of the population, in almost any field, where people are intoxicated by the idea of the Big Project. In my own field of science I've been around people who pushed for Big Science - ever larger, highly collaborative endeavors, across disciplines, involving large numbers of researchers in projects requiring huge amounts of money. They get delirious about these Big Science projects. Their eyes glaze over as they fantasize and proselitize about the many wonders and benefits that will rain down on all. Somehow they seem to think that good science will not get done without huge amounts of money, massive inputs of infrastructure, vast numbers of graduate students, all pumping out paper after paper - not to mention large amounts of PR. All the better to get more research funding.

Well, it's good to get students trained, and it's good to get research done and published. But face it, most research papers are garbage, and Big Science only increases the depth of the dump pile. It gets to be like a treadmill, and it's dubious how much value derives from the Big Project mentality.

It's really all about Big Prestige. With Big Prestige comes Big Funding, and with Big Funding comes more Big Projects, and with more Big Projects comes more Big Prestige.

Oh well...that's the way it is...it isn't pretty, and if one looks through history at the most elegant and insightful science one will see that little of it came from Big Projects.

It's a kind of sickness that has its roots in the bowels of the capitalist system and the marketplace. I see that as a problem.

Bigger is Better...

or not.

If, then

If laughter is the best medicine
and weed makes you laugh

then weed
is good medicine.

Pieces of Pride

Pieces of Pride

My little pieces of pride

what’s left of the whole

will see my ass to hell.

I should have left it all

buried it in the trash

the same way I’ve buried

so many other delusions.

I get so het up about the inconsiderate nature

of human interactions.

It’s as rare as diamonds to find someone

who will offer a human response.

They’re busy, they’re busy, they’re busy…

They’re assholes is what they are

and there is no other explanation

for their crude and crass behaviour.

It’s as if they think I’ve never been busy.

The other day I sent a poem to an editor.

I didn’t expect a response

and I didn’t get one.

A couple weeks later I get a knock on the door.

Shit! Who the fuck is that?

I ask myself.

I get up and answer the pestiferous thing.

There’s some wizened little guy with a shaved head standing there

he’s got a little gold earring in his left earlobe

and a Masai stretched plug thing in his right earlobe.

Very unimaginative that

the little shit.

He’s got tattoos smeared across both his arms

and who knows where else.

Doesn’t he realize that he will never experience nudity again?

Who the fuck are you?

I ask.

I’m Nate Miller

Artistic Editor of The Weed & Scratch Review.

Ah, you…I reply.

You’re the guy who doesn’t have the common courtesy

the common decency

the simple respect

the team spirit

the union with fellow

artists

writers

musicians

the poor and reviled

such as myself

to spend 30 seconds of your time

on a single line response.

Get the fuck off my porch asshole, I hiss.

But I have something to tell you, he says.

Get off my fucking porch before I fucking put my foot a mile up your asshole!

I lunge out the door at him.

He skedaddles down the steps

sidles across the grass

sidestepping the birdbath.

We want to publish you! he shouts

as he backs off toward his bike.

I don’t hear him though

I’m simply sick of it all.

Damn!

I say to myself

it’s too early for a beer.

The last little pieces of pride stick

like spikes in my side.

I’ll be a monk yet,

someday.   

The Fool

The Fool

The definition of a fool

is

one who continues to make the same mistakes

over

and

over

and

over

again.

I am such a person.

It causes me great consternation,

but I plow on

convinced somehow

that it’s all unrecognized

genius.

I’d commit suicide if I wasn’t so

curious about what crap

is going to

crop up

next.

But America is trying to kill me

so I don’t need to commit suicide.

That job has already been assigned

and the hit is being carried out

as we speak

here

tonight.

I keep hoping for an opening

though I can see

as clear as a June morning

on a Sierra lake

that there is no door

no window

no gate

into

the open.

There is a world that lives

in my mind

that will always be

an apparition

hovering in the distance.

I flail against the wall

like a drowning person

beating my fists

till they bleed

until finally I am spent

husked out of my shell

and cast against the stones.

There,

I’ve gone and done it

again.  

Heroes

Most of my life I've had the attitude that having heroes was a bad thing. There was a kind of suicide there, buried in the reveration of another. The subordination seemed to be equivalent to a denigration to me.
All the while I had my heroes, of course.
I tried to avoid having only one, or having too many.
I criticized these 'heroes' when I saw fit, thus absolving myself of the sin of 'having heroes'.
I do have my heroes, however.
Here are some of them:

Claudie
Emma
Charles Darwin
Charles Bukowski
Che Guevara
Charlie Parker
Blind Blake
Louie CK
Lenny Bruce
Knut Hamsun
Fyodor Dostoyevski
Michael Lynch
Louis Ferdinand-Celine
Missippippi John Hurt
Miles Davis
Thelonius Monk
Barry Bonds
...
there are others, of course.
Perhaps I'll add to this list; accrete additional heroes onto my armor...who knows?
Perhaps I'll add to the list in days to come...